Two of the top prospects in the Class of 2011, Seattle guard Tony Wroten and Oakland guard Jabari Brown, will announce their college choices tonight on ESPNU.
Brown (pictured) goes at 5 p.m. EST and Wroten follows at 6.
The 6-foot-5 Wroten has a final five of Washington, Louisville, UConn, Villanova and Seattle University, but most expect him to announce for either Washington or Louisville.
Quincy Miller and Deuce Bello are back from their weekend trip to Baylor and have more visits planned.
The 6-foot-9 1/2, 190-pound Miller, the No. 1 power forward in the Class of 2011, now has a top four schools.
“I narrowed it down to four — Baylor, Duke, Louisville and Oklahoma,” Miller said Wednesday by phone.
Asked if he had any favorites, Miller replied: “Baylor and Louisville are slightly in the lead and Duke is right behind and then Oklahoma.”
Jay Murphy has one son at Florida and another in the thick of the recruiting process.
But even he has never seen anything like the turnout for Sunday’s open gym at the St. Mark’s School in Southborough, Mass.
According to the New England Recruiting Report, the head coaches who turned out combined to win the last 11 NCAA championships.
Mike Krzyzewski of Duke (1991, 1992, 2001, 2010), Roy Williams of North Carolina (2005 & 2009), Bill Self of Kansas (2008), Billy Donovan of Florida (2006 & 2007), and Jim Calhoun of UConn (1999 & 2004) were all in the gym.
His name is God’s Gift and according to his coach, he might just be that for some college program.
God’s Gift Achiuwa is a 6-foot-8 power forward originally from Nigeria who competes at Erie Community College in Buffalo, N.Y. His father is a minister in his home country and gave him the unusual name.
He is being recruited by Ohio State, Cincinnati, St. John’s, N.C. State, Marquette, Hawaii and Niagara, according to Erie coach Alex Nwora.
“He’s not going to take any visits until afer Christmas,” Nwora said Wednesday by phone. “After Christmas, we’re going to cut down and narrow down to three or four schools he’s going to visit and then we’re going to make a decision and sign in April.”
ESPN made two key hires in the basketball world recently, although one is receiving a lot more attention than the other.
The Worldwide Leader announced the hiring of Brian Windhorst, who covered the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer and maintains a close relationship with LeBron James.
Windhorst is part of a four-man team that comprises ESPN’s new “Heat Index,” “devoted specifically to daily, season-long coverage of the Miami Heat and their new superstar core of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.”
St. John’s head coach Steve Lavin is about to embark on a coast-to-coast recruiting hunt that could impact the future of the program for years to come.
St. John’s has two pledges for 2011 in Queens wing Maurice Harkless and Brewster (N.H.) Academy forward JaKarr Sampson, but Lavin still has eight more scholarships to give.
“I really don’t follow that stuff,” Harkless said last week at the South Kent (Conn.) School. “That’s the coaches’ job. I’m just hoping they get all the right pieces.”
